Seven takeaways from the New Zealand episode of Conan O’Brien Must Go

You probably saw the headlines when US late night talk show host Conan O’Brien made his way to New Zealand last year.

There was his cameo on Shortland Street and he was one of thousands that came together to help take the haka world record from France. In the New Zealand episode of Conan O’Brien Must Go, we learn the US comedian was lured here by the hunt for a guy named Riley who lives in a converted shipping container in Hokitika and poops in a bucket.

Conan O’Brien Must Go is a HBO series spawned from his podcast, Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend. A travel show, sure, but one inspired by a hunt to find fans who called into the pod.

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There’s scenery, though, as the comedian machetes his way through the bush to find the bucket house. Our creatures take the spotlight with skits riffing on the massive sheep numbers. Culture? There's that haka record, a Shortland Street cameo, a Māori tattoo and an introduction to our collective love of meat pies and cans of V.

O’Brien takes it all in his self-deprecating, usually funny but sometimes over-the-top fashion.

We pulled out our favourite takeaways from Conan O’Brien Must Go, episode two: New Zealand.

While on a mission to familiarise himself with the local dialect and mannerisms of New Zealanders, O’Brien discovers not everyone can be skux.

He meets local comedian Abbey Howells who schools him on local accent, posture (it’s all about lack of bone structure), drinking culture (Scrumpy hands) and using chur, nek minnit and skux in a sentence.

O’Brien learns he’s not, in fact, skux. He’s maybe “skux-ish”, but the journey to skux is a long one.

Early in the episode we see O’Brien doing what’s “required by the government” when visiting Aotearoa - meeting up with Taika Waititi.

They’re at Eden Park, preparing for that world record haka attempt and O’Brien gets a crash course in Ka Mate with his teacher Maaka Pohatu. He tackles the task with a little self-deprecation and a decent amount of effort.

When told to be "grotesque" with pūkana, he jokes about the "many women" that have told him he's good at that.

The best moment? While learning Ka Mate during the day, a crowd of bystanders join in behind him.

Can you even visit the South Island without discovering our cheeky kea are “dicks”?

The bird in question illustrates the point by having a nibble on the rubber of his rental car before having a go at his pants and giving him a little chase.

Classic kea.

Props have to go to Rotorua councillor Conan O’Brien who embraces the brief of delivering dead-pan comedy with his American namesake for a sit-down skit that sees the pair donning terrible wigs and swapping roles briefly.

We meet Penny from Christchurch who has four cats and isn’t married yet but is happy for the comedian to give a nudge to her partner Malcolm on TV. The whole "this totally isn't scripted" urging from O'Brien, coupled with a few nervous giggles from Penny makes for awkward viewing.

Maybe it's the fact that - planned or not - "hurry up and get married" comments just feel uncomfortable.

Although Malcolm gives an amusingly Kiwi response: "Alright … If it's on the house, for sure".

Viewers familiar with the long-running prank Paul Rudd pulled on O'Brien during the late night years can probably guess what's to come when - at a DVD rental store in Christchurch - Rudd makes a virtual cameo with the promise of an unseen clip from a movie he filmed.

Continuing the now decades-old prank, a scene from the 1988 film Mac and Me is played instead.

“F---er”, says O'Brien.

It's finally time to meet Hokitika family man Riley who lives in a shipping container house with his wife and kids and a bucket for everyone to poop in.

What does the comedian think of the off-grid long drop that he found so crazy he worked his way through haka, sheep, dick birds and Shortland Street cameos to see?

He emphasises the “some kind of crime”-ness of the longdrop with a sawdust scoop enough times for the joke to drag a little too long, but "it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be".

And with that, he meets Riley's white, scrawny chicken named Conan, leaves the family with a couple of gag gifts, sends his newlywed couple on a few Hanmer Springs bungee jumps and bids our little island nation farewell.

"Even though the people of NZ never found me skux and they already have a Conan O’Brien I feel I'm always welcome to show my pūkana here again. Kia Ora, Aotearoa."

Chur.

New episodes of Conan O’Brien Must Go are released every Thursday on NEON.